Rutgers Planet Earth Exam 4 Browning

Approximately what percentage of Earth's surface is covered with water?

70%

What is the HMS Challenger expedition known for?

Proving sea floor spreading

What is the continental shelf?

The extension of the adjacent continent covered by ocean

What is an epicontinental sea?

A sea that covers the central area of a continent

In the graded shelf model for continental shelf sediments, where are the coarse sandy sediments?

At the beach

How are submarine canyons formed?

turbidity currents

What are deep sea sediments derived from organisms are called

Biogenic

Why are carbonate skeletons absent from the deepest parts of the ocean?

Carbonate dissolves quickly in cold water

Where are siliceous sediments found

Where nutrients are abundant or cold water

Which of these are freshwater reservoirs:

Oceans and Glaciers

Glaciers and Groundwater

Groundwater and Oceans

Glaciers and Groundwater

The boundary between the saturated zone and the unsaturated zone is called what

Water Table

The percentage of the total volume of a body of sediment or bedrock that consists of open spaces is:

Porosity

Why do clays have low permeability

The connections between pores are too small to allow water to pass between the pores

Karst regions are only found where there is:

carbonate bedrock

D'Arcy's Law shows that groundwater flow depends upon which two things:

steeper gradients and greater permeability

What is a well drilled into an aquifer under pressure, requiring no pumping to get water flow

Artesian well

Excessive pumping in relation to recharge can cause what 3 things

Water Table Decline

A cone of depression

The well to go dry

What properties of a geologic material make the best aquifer?

High Porosity, High permeability

What must occur in order for the groundwater table to remain constant?

The rate of recharge must be equal to the discharge rate

What is a drainage basin?

The region drained by a river

The shape of the longitudinal profile of all streams is:

Concave upward

What is the ultimate bass level for all streams?

Sea Level

What happens to velocity when the area decreases and the discharge stays the same?

It increases

Higher fluid velocities are needed to erode:

large particles

Capacity is a measure of:

The total amount of sediment a stream can move

What are braided streams

Streams consisting of a network of small channels connected by temporary islands

What is the term for a curved sandbar that forms on the inside curve of a stream

Point Bar

Large meander loops that are cut off from the main channel and fill slowly with fine sediment are called:

Oxbow lakes

A sedimentary deposit that forms where a stream flows into a standing water body is called:

A Delta

As a river overflows its banks during flood, it drops much of its coarser-grained load immediately, forming landforms called:

Natural Levees

The steepest angle that a slope can maintain without collapsing is called_________

Angle of Repose

How does a flow differ from a slide?

A flow is a mixture that moves like a viscous liquid, a slide moves as a single intact block

The imperceptibly slow downhill movement of soil and sediment is called_________

Creep

Because of the curvature of the Earth, light reaching the poles is more _____ and therefore, the energy received at the surface is _______ than at the equator.

Diffuse; less intense

In which direction are winds deflected by the Coriolis effect?

Right in the north, left in the south

Why are many deserts located at 30deg north and south of the equator?

Cool descending air at those latitudes warms and absorbs moisture

Desert pavement forms because_______

Wind removes the fine-grained materials between pebbles

What is an expanse of material deposited where a channel leaves the mountains

Alluvial fan

What is a mass of ice completely covering all land surface within its margin

Ice Sheet

When Ablation exceeds accumulation, the glacier will:

Retreat

Valleys cut by streams tend to be what shape

V-Shaped

What is the name for a bowl-like depression that forms at the head of a glacier?

Cirque

The Terminal moraine for the last glaciation is found

Northern New Jersey

Passive Margins

The transitional zone between ocean and continent that does not occur at a plate boundary

Near the beach the sediment should be _____ and more inland it should be _____

coarse; finer

coastal plain

part of the continental margin that has been previously covered by ocean

epicontinental sea

a sea that covers the central areas of a continent

submarine canyon

canyons in the ocean formed by turbidity currents

turbidity currents

powerful undersea avalanches caused by earthquakes and can rip through the sea floor and create canyons

the order of the ocean starting from the shallowest to the deepest

continental shelf
continental slope
continental rise
abyssal plain

continental shelf

extension of adjacent continent, underlain by continental crust and covered by ocean

continental slope

where the continental shelf drops down

continental rise

a sloping area with a build up of sediment and contains submarine fans

submarine fans

large, fan-like deposits of sediment

abyssal plain

deepest part of the sea
very flat and no tectonic processes
flattest part on Earth

what are the 3 deep sea sediments

Lithogenic
Hydrogenic
biogenic

lithogenic sediments

found right next to the continents and derived from the land

hydrogenic sediment

manganese nodules
very slow growth

biogenic sediment

bones, shells, teeth
cover more than half of the deep ocean floor
made of carbonate and silica

what are the 3 ways of distribution of carbonate sediments

Dilution
Destruction
productivity

dilution

by other particles

destruction

calcium carbonate dissolves

productivity

reproduction of organisms

vent faunas

communities of organisms that live around hydrothermal cents on the deep ocean floor

oceans hold how what percent of the water on Earth

96%

what are the 4 processes of the hydrologic cycle

run-off
evaporation
transportation
infiltration

mass equality

when the amount of water taken from the ocean is also the same amount that comes back

what is the most reliable source of drinking water

groundwater

groundwater supplies how much percent of our water

~30%

water table

separates the saturated and unsaturated zone

saturated zone

the zone below the unsaturated zone where water builds up

unsaturated zone

open spaces are normally filled with air and allow water to flow through

Aquifer

sediment or rock that water easily flows through
sand and weathered limestones

confined aquifer

bracketed by two confining beds

unconfined aquifer

one that does not have a confining bed above it

confining bed

sediments or rocks that restrict the flow of water
shale and clay

porosity

the percent of the total volume of a rock that consists of pore spaces
lowest in igneous and metamorphic rocks

differences in porous rocks

sizes and shapes of particles
compactness of the arrangement

permeability

the capacity for transmitting fluids

low porosity means ____ permeability but high porosity does not mean ____ permeability

low; high

dissolution

groundwater combines with carbon dioxide to form carbonic acid

karst topography

appears where there is carbonate bedrock
bunch of hills and holes in the ground where streams will disappear and reappear

stalactite

icicle like cone on the ceiling

stalagmite

upward pointing cone on the floor

recharge

where groundwater infiltrates during rainfall and replenishes

disharge

where groundwater flows from the surface and into springs and streams

springs

locations where water table intersects the ground surface
caused from very high water table or a perched water table

darcy’s law

the rate of recharge needs to equal the discharge rate

subsidence

over pumping can cause grains to settle and the ground level to drop
Joaquin Valley, CA
Venice, Italy

wells

a drilled through hole into a water source

cone of depression

a conical shaped depression of water table caused by pumping

over pumping

taking too much water out and can cause the water table to drop below the depth of the drill

salt water intrusion

pulling salt-water into fresh-water aquifers

sheetwash

a film of water a few millimeters thick that cover the ground surface

stream

channelized flow of any size that forms its own channel of erosion

drainage basin

region drained by a single river or river stream

river head

where the water and erosion starts

river mouth

where the stream goes into a larger body of water
where deposition occurs

river trunk

the beginning of the big river where all the tributaries come together

drainage basin divide

the area that divides the two drainage basins

typically a mountain